I’d think it fair to say that most of the time it’s done very well, and with our complete acceptance, maybe even our mandate. We provide millions of dollars each summer to the major studios when they feed us their latest crop of big budget special-effects laden movies—and why not? They’re escapism at its craftiest.

But when something occurs that’s so far removed from context and viability it strains your audience’s trust, then that tenuous thread of willingness snaps and it’s near impossible to reconnect. There’s a lot of sub-text, nuance, and demographics beneath it all, sure, but as a whole once you’ve violated that trust or insulted their intelligence then the jig is up.

Here are a couple of examples:

The British burning of the Presidential Mansion (now called the White House), August 1814.
I recently watched a presentation about the presidents, which overall I very much enjoyed. However, at one point my ‘thread’ snapped. They were discussing the presidency of James Madison, making mention of the small number of British troops sent into the capitol during the War of 1812. There were too few troops to actually occupy the city so the order was given to burn it. The show put emphasis on the torching of the White House and how only the exterior walls existed in the aftermath. As Americans, this certainly raises our hackles. We may not always agree with our leaders, but you don’t mess with our icons!

Is the above historical information inaccurate? No, but it’s not complete either. I know a little bit more about it than perhaps the casual viewer, so from that point forward I watched the remainder of the program with a jaundiced eye—I no longer willingly believed that everything presented was complete and balanced. To be fair, I’m sure the producers in no way intended to editorialize or slant history, but it seems unfair to history to leave out the reason for the order to burn the city.

You see, during the Battle of York a year earlier, the Continental Army performed the same operation, looting and burning what is now the city of Toronto, Canada, including the Parliament Buildings of Upper Canada. The program made absolutely no mention of that.

The British burned Washington in retaliation for what was, at that time, an attack upon a British territory. It really stinks that we lost not only the Presidential Mansion, but the Library of Congress, and the buildings housing the Senate and House of Representatives (although it could be argued that’s not so terrible a loss), amongst other buildings. However, the U.S. Patent Office was not burned as the British commanders had been convinced of its importance as a storehouse for records.

And yes, it’s true that Dolly Madison saved a portrait of George Washington.

See? Now it’s much easier to understand that the burning of the city was more an act of war than an unprovoked attack. The small history lesson above highlights why research and proper presentation can easily avert losing an audience member to disbelief.

Perhaps a more modern-day example would help.

The pilot episode of Lost.
Premise: A jetliner, after departing from Sydney, breaks up in mid-flight and parts of it happen to crash-land upon a remote island some 1,000 miles off course. The flight plan assuredly has put rescuers in the wrong place, stranding the survivors.

Let me state at the outset—I think the show is very well done, beautifully shot and can be fun to watch. But I had two big problems almost from the beginning. The tail section breaks off, then the starboard wing. At some point it appears that the cockpit and first-class sections of the fuselage break off from the remainder of it. I haven’t counted, but I’m guessing there are some 20–30 survivors which wind up strewn about on the beach—and that chunk of the fuselage just happens to land right-side up, apparently. I suppose it could happen.

Okay, so I let all that go for the sake of the story, for dramatic purposes.

During the initial drama, as both the characters and viewers get their bearings, we hear something winding up then slowing down, which we later discover is one of the engines. Mind you, the cockpit containing all the controls is elsewhere, distantly separated from the fuselage and the apparently still-functional engine. We get to see this huge engine spin up for a few seconds, then it slows down. The plane is in pieces, metal shredded and lying everywhere. Fuel is typically stored in the wings on an aircraft. One might think that with all the stresses and mid-air trauma a plane would go through in this situation that its eventual impact would at least rupture the fuel tank. Apparently Hollywood builds a better plane.

I won’t spoil the fun for you if you haven’t seen it, but the engine explodes in high-drama fashion—and admittedly, it’s pretty cool. But is it believable?

For me it’s not. First, for an engine to rev up then spin down would take some kind of power source, and we’re shown this engine running for perhaps a good ten minutes, if not more. Where is the power coming from?

Second, an explosion that huge would, I think, take out most of the survivors on the beach. It does kill a few, but that’s it.

Now, I understand it’s all for drama and all that good stuff. Did I stop watching? No. I’d heard so much about it that I wanted to see what all the buzz was about. But the whole set up that took place the first half hour or so absolutely strained my ability to willingly suspend disbelief. Having said that, once the story started turning to the characters and their struggles, it was easier to settle in and enjoy the plotline.

I’ll grant you that neither of the above examples are gross violations of stepping over the believe-it-or-not line, but I was able to pick them up with little trouble—and I assure you I’m no Rhodes Scholar. But it’s possible that I’m a little more critical than others. Being a fan of Mark Twain, I submit one of his rules for writing, applicable to this issue:

Crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader by either the author or the people in the tale.

If you don’t know much about a subject you want to include in your writing then don’t try to fake your way through it—research it. Read about it. If possible, talk to those who know something about it . . . then write about it.

A final caution: It’s very easy to get caught up in the vernacular of something foreign, meaning that when you do finally become comfortable enough (or as comfortable as you need to be) with a new subject and you’re ready to include it in your story don’t allow yourself to spout jargon about the subject. It will do little for creating a smooth read for your audience, and may cause confusion. Keep it simple, but descriptive. Look, on the rare occasion I ever enter a Starbucks I want something simple, and I typically want the smallest one. Their size offerings make no sense to me:

Tall, which we normally associate with a large drink . . .
Grande, which would seem to imply the biggest or largest . . .
Venti, which apparently refers to the number of ounces.

Whatever happened to small, medium, and large? See my point? Remember, this is writing, not beverage marketing.

So go ahead and be creative, take a few liberties—by all means dare to dream and imagine. Write about all those ideas and pictures cavorting about in your head. Take us with you, but give us the two big palm trees to suspend our hammock between; and as long as we believe those trees sit a small coconut’s throw from the shoreline, and we can almost smell the salty breeze wafting off the ocean, we’ll soak up every word you feed us. But tell us those trees are nestled atop the cotton fluff of clouds with the earth sprawling below, and we might just look back at you and say aloud “Are you kidding me?”

© 2008 J.W. Nicklaus

J.W. Nicklaus is a twice-published poet and author of a new short-story collection The Light, The Dark, and Ember Between.